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C&e JFourtf; of fulp, 1820, 



IN COMMEMORATION Qf 



•AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE^ 



BY APPOINTMENT OF THE 



CHARLESTON RIFLEMEN. 



By JAMES HAIG, Esq. 

A MEMBER OF THE CORPS. 



CHARLESTON: 

W. P. YOUNG AND SON, PRINTERS. 

1820. 



4 



i 



The ceaseless course of lime has brought us to 
the commencement of a new year of our political 
existence. At this moment we are called upon to 
witness and to act in a spectacle the most beautiful 
and astonishing in nature. We come not to grace 
the pomp and pageantry of a king, nor to deck the 
ensanguined car of a conqueror. We follow not 
the mourful solemnity of an inquisitorial proces- 
sion, nor watch the agonies of the immolated victim 
of superstition. But we are met to perform the 
sacred and solemn exercises of the annual Sabbath 
of freedom. With the millions who throng the 
temples of the Most High to join in the hymn of 
national deliverance, and to pour forth the over- 
flowings of national gratitude, one overwhelming 
feeling, one exhaustless subject, fills up every ave- 
nue of thought and dispels every meaner and un- 
generous affection. That feeling is the feeling of 
patriotism— that subject is our country. " Dear 
even to the savage is the land of his fathers— dear to 
the citizen of civilized ages are the institutions of 
national wisdom, and the monuments of national 
glory, but upon no human heart did the claims of 
his country ever fall so deep and irresistible as they 
do upon the citizen of this country." In the con- 
templation of the great and manifold blessings she 
enjoys, and of the high destiny to which she is 
called the world, and its heartless cares are left. 
behind, and the remembrance even of private emo- 



4 

tion is lost. From this elevated point of observa- 
tion, the moral glory which encircles her brow, 
shines with increasing brightness over the ruins of 
empire and amid the desolations and the darkness of 
the past. S he alone, among the nations of the earth, 
has assumed the enviable station of an independent 
republic, and stands forth the model of the imitation, 
and the depository of the hopes of the universe. 

Is there a heart, then, insensible to the great pros- 
pects this day presents, or whose lonely feelings 
accord not with the high and exalted enthusiasm it 
is so well calculated to inspire? If such indifference 
can exist, or if in the bosom of a single individual, no 
answering tone be found to the song of joy which 
the recurrence of this spring-time of our existence 
has raised, let him look back on the melancholy 
x'ecord of ancient barbarism, of Gothic feuds, of 
civilized intolerance. Let him image to himself 
the darkness and the coldness of that winter which 
so lately hung over the world, whose severity was 
uncheered by the genial influences of heaven, and 
whose gloom was dimly relieved by the lurid glare 
of a revolutionary flame. Let his sated eye rest on 
the black catalogue of its guilt and its misery — 
where genius was devoted to the corruption of 
private morals and the destruction of public virtue, 
and where ambition heard its sweetest music in the 
dying tgroans of humanity. Let him follow its 
awful vicissitudes which saw thrones deserted by 
their ancient possessors to be filled with the outcasts 
of society, and the withered foliage of ancestral 
pride and hereditary dignity strewed on the earth 
by the winds which have uprooted the tree of their 
strength. Let him mark the quick gathering of that 
final storm whose fury desolated the earth, and 
shook the pillars of society, which prostrated all the 
obligations and all the charities of life, and wasted 



the fountains of its greatness, and whose departure 
hath left us to mourn over its ravages without 
revealing in the heavens the bright arch of peace 
and of gladness. From this picture, stained and 
disfigured with the crimes and the misfortunes of 
his fellow beings, let him resume the contemplation 
of his native land, moistened with the dews of 
heaven, and blooming with the sweets of the earth 
— the asylum of the oppressed and the sanctuary of 
virtue — proud in the recollections of the past — 
secure in the honors of the present — and glowing 
with the promises of the future. On such a scene 
let the solitariness of his affections expand, and the 
pride of his heart relent, for a language which neither 
can withstands tells him that God himself hath con- 
secrated the union of the free, the wise and the 
virtuous — that he hath watched over the ark of their 
political safety amid the waters of the great deluge 
— that his arm hath stayed the tide of conquest and 
saved them unhurt under the confusion of the ele- 
ments — and that within the circle of their empire, 
he hath built up a temple, on whose altars the holy 
fire of patriotism burns with unquenchable lustre, 
and around whose massy columns the impurities of 
earth leave not a stain. 

These are the great blessings we are assembled to 
commemorate — this the lofty theme of our contem- 
plations. With the bright realities of the one and 
the magnificent details of the other opening upon 
the eye, can we be unmindful of those whose match- 
less exertions have secured to us their rich inheri- 
tance ? Whilst we peruse the animated features of 
our country's happiness — trace the long extended 
line of her greatness — and listen to the fond antici- 
pations of her future glory, can we overlook their 
gallant achievements, their unceasing solicitudes, 
their honourable self-denials ? Shall we forget those 



i 

who have died in her defence or lived for her protec- 
tion ? Do we retain no recollection of that mighty 
tribunal before which tyranny stood arraigned, and 
the long forgotten rights of man started up in judg- 
ment? Is not that voice which issued from the 
wilderness, proclaiming liberty to the captive and 
redemption to the oppressed, still thrilling in our 
ears ? It is : these remembrances yet remain to 
warm and animate the bosom of the patriot. The 
grave which hath hidden so many from our sight, 
and the weight of years which is carrying down their 
lew venerable survivors to its silent mansions, still 
reflect back the light of their virtues. Nature erects 
a monument to departed worth which outlives the 
devastations of time, and endures when all the 
accomplishments of art and all the trophies of 
genius have perished. It is built on the gratitude 
of posterity, and the affections of the heart form its 
solid foundations. The ornaments which deck it 
are the emulation of the young and the reverence 
of the aged, and the columns of its support are the 
increasing benefits til their example, and the pros- 
pects of usefulness their labours have unfolded to 
the millions yet unborn. 

Whilst then we are revelling in the harvest their 
toils have matured, and luxuriating in the bowers 
their industry has reared, would it not comport 
with the filial respect we owe their memory to 
recall the nature of their services and to dwell on 
the peculiarities of that eventful contest in which 
they were engaged ? Now that the excitement which 
marshalled them in the ranks of war has subsided, 
and the certainty of atonement for the injuries we 
had suffered is daily increasing, it were unwise and 
unmanly to tear open the wounds which time has 
cicatrised, but it surely may be permitted us to- 
speak of what iias been done for the introduction of 



the great blessings which have fallen to our lot, and; 
for the hastening on of that happy era when the 
world shall unite with us in the celebration of thtir 
common enjoyment. 

Never, in the history of the human race, had a. 
period occurred more propitious to the cause of 
truth, or when its friends could have indulged more 
reasonable calculations of its triumph, than at the 
decline of the last century. A fullness and richness 
of light, like the meridian splendour of a summer's 
sun, was then spread over the mighty landscape 
which civilization presented. It was the Augustan 
age of the world, when all that could delight the 
admirer of beauty, or draw forth the slower com- 
mendations of the moralist and man of science, 
whether the effusions of fancy or the productions of 
philosophy, whether the enterprise of commerce or 
the skill of domestic employment, whether the 
refinements of manners or the instructions of a 
sublime religion, were called to dignify and adorn 
it. By its perseverance the limits of the habitable 
globe were explored, and the genius of a rude bar- 
barian catching the spirit which animated it, gave a 
new acquisition to the catalogue of nations that 
owned its empire. One requisite was yet wanting 
to its perfection— freedom had not yet completed its 
proportions. An unlicensed despotism still slumber- 
ed in security, or roused itself to rivet more closely 
its fetters, and men seemed to have lost the wish, so 
completely had they been divested of the means, of 
resistance to its usurpations. A devouring ambition 
whose appetite knew no limits and which constantly 
ranged in quest of new victims to glut its fury, had 
at length consolidated its supremacy, and from its 
towering eminence looked down with malignant 
satisfaction on the bloody traces of its progress. 
But the energies of improvement must eventually 



8 

elevate society above the condition of slavery, and 
it is the misfortune of power that though its efforts 
may retard they cannot wholly suppress the ad- 
vancement of knowledge. Experience moreover has 
demonstrated the imbecility of mere physical force, 
and its utter inaptitude for the purposes of despotic 
sway, unassisted by those moral influences which 
regal presumption so much affects to despise. Its 
interests therefore give a new character to its policy, 
and compel it to conciliate the object of its secret 
hate — the enemy of its secret ambition. Hence that 
governmental patronage which was extended to the 
labours of the human mind — and hence the rewards 
and honours which were showered down upon 
those who contributed to the general stock of infor- 
mation any discovery in science or any invention 
in art. These however, while they reflected the 
glory of its objects, upon the liberality which 
bestowed them, were imperceptibly weakening the 
ancient institutions of society, and dispossessing its 
forms of all their veneration. Indeed, under the 
delusive quietness of the scene, the elements of a 
mighty change were forming, and the materials of a 
new order of things were rapidly preparing. 

The appearance of the American revolution, 
ushered by these harbingers of political reform 
could not fail of attracting unusual attention. It 
became the great struggle between reason and force, 
and its result w r as to determine the improvement of 
the human race — to fortify the dominion of error, 
or to give a new current to the stagnated waters of 
truth. Its conduct and its motives moreover hap- 
pily comported with that superiority of character it 
derived from the circumstances which preceded its 
origin, and with that marked and momentous agency 
it was destined to exert on the future condition and 
prospects of society. It exhibited the lofty and 



commanding attitude of an indignant people, claim 
ing their unalienable rights, and defending them 
against the encroachments of tyranny. It originated 
in those essential and irreconcilable diversities of 
sentiment and of interest, which can alone justify 
a separation between the members of a great com- 
munity, and a finai disruption of the civil ties which 
connect them. It recognized with religious defer- 
ence, the obligations of the social compact, and felt 
that nothing could discharge its parties from the 
performance of the relative duties it assigned ; but 
such an infraction by either, as would amount 
to a virtual dissolution of itself. With prudence 
equal to its loyalty, it determined on submission as 
long as toleration was practicable; and declined 
an appeal to arms until the moment when every 
other resort had proved ineffectual, and when no 
other remedy remained to the oppressed. On this 
simple and clear reasoning our forefathers rested : 
this dictated their remonstrances — this characterised 
their negotiations — and after the one were contempt- 
uously disregarded, and the other were shamefully 
and unblushingly violated— this framed the grand 
instrument — the magna charta of our political liber- 
ties, and the memorial of our political birth. 

Its beneficial effects were more immediately and 
decisively displayed in the formation and develope- 
ment of individual character. In the vacillating irre- 
soluteness of conduct, and in the dissipation of mo- 
tive attending the petty convulsions that ordinarily 
occur, as they afford no checks to the indulgence of 
passion, are to be found the excuses and inducements 
of every enormity. The general guilt precludes the 
idea of personal responsibility, and the inutility of 
reformation stifles the remorses of conscience. 
There is something on the contrary solemn and 

B 



10 

»ublime in the declaration of national independence 
It is calculated to awaken the most thoughtless to 
meditation, and to dissolve the insensibility of the 
most obdurate. From being the blind and unin- 
formed instruments oT power, we are advanced into 
the sphere of free and honourable employment, and 
to a share in the administration of the universe. On 
such an occasion, therefore, the levity and the weak- 
nesses of ordinary conduct disappear, and the desires 
of the soul and the exertions of the intellect, corres- 
pond with the glory and the happiness of the species. 
The difficulties which spring up are but the trials 
of our firmness — the enemies we encounter but the 
approvers of our prowess — and the field on which 
they are met, the place where our names are embo- 
died in the annals of mankind, for the admiration 
of the wise and the blessings of the virtuous. Ac- 
cordingly, we are prepared to meet in the details of 
the revolution, those rare and exalted specimens of 
chivalric valour and romantic disinterestedness, in 
the contemplation of which the mind delights to 
dwell, and around whose laurels the enchantments 
of fiction can wind no additional wreath. Whose 
bosom is not elated with an honest pride, as he 
reflects that Providence hath cast his lot in a land 
and in an age where the living forms of the bene 
factors of society greet his eye, and that he lives to 
commune with the beings who have achieved the 
illustrious work of a nation's disenthralment ? Who 
does not fondly linger around the grave of the hero 
whose blood was shed in the conflict of freedom, 
and whose last sigh floated on the winds which bore 
to Heaven the sound of victory in her cause? 
Which of us can forget the generous devotion of 
the stranger, whom the degradation of Poland de- 
dicated to our service ? Or whose imagination is 



ii 

not transported to the solitude of a native Wallace, 
as inflexible to the proffers, as he had been invincible 
to the weapon of the invader ? Whose soul is not 
alternately subdued into softness and raised into 
admiration, at the spectacle of female loveliness, at 
one moment with a matronly hand throwing the 
mantle of consolation over the afflictions, at an- 
other, in all the majesty of beauty, arresting the 
retreating patriotism, of the soldier ? But eulogy 
shrinks from enumeration, when thousands swell 
the lists. It points to one alone, in whom were 
combined the excellencies of all— the prototype of 
all that is beautiful in virtue, and all that is exalted 
in patriotism— the beacon of his country's hopes — 
the day star of her fortunes — her leader in battle, 
and her guardian in peace. On such a theme, how- 
ever, the pencil of the painter falls from his hands, 
and the genius of biography confesses her impo- 
tence. 

Could freedom then have despaired of success, 
under the guidance of these principles, and of men 
whose ambition was the glory of their country and 
the defence of her rights. Could the hirelings of 
slavery seriously have anticipated the conquest of a 
people whose hearts were alive to these lofty conside- 
rations, whose sufferings impressed them more deep- 
ly with the dignity of their cause, and whose every 
advantage was regarded as the evidence of its justice, 
and felt as the incentive to higher exertions ? " We 
are, and of right ought to be, free and independent," 
was the inspired sentiment of according millions, 
and for the support of this declaration, " with a firm 
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, 
they mutually pledged to eaclf other their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honours." Once pro- 
claimed, neither misfortune could shake, nor dan- 



12 

ger appal that fortitude, the consciousness of fe 
truth infused. It was this which supported them 
under all the horrors of war, and invigorated them 
under all its vicissitudes. To all classes of the citi- 
zens it imparted an untiring ardor, an invincible 
confidence. In the battle-field's darkness it spoke 
in the kindling eje of the warrior — redoubled the 
strength of his arm, and when life had forsaken his 
form, left a smile on the lips where death had set 
its impress. It purified the conceptions of the 
statesman, deceived the burthen of his duties, and 
directed his hopes to an exaltation higher than all 
the distinctions which guilt has invented, and folly 
has eternised. 

In any struggle for national independence, or for 
the preservatian of individual rights, the demorali- 
zing influence of those feelings it necessarily brings 
into action, is unfortunately but too manifest. 
Should the arm of power crush the vindictive spirit 
which dared to resist its aggressions, and aspired at 
emancipation, its success augments its ambition and 
encourages its guilty schemes ; whilst with the van- 
quished, their misfortunes tend to stifle the love of 
country, to engender a morbid insensibility to the 
welfare of mankind, and to create the most dis 
tressing doubts of the ultimate improvement of 
human institutions. But the more complicated 
evils, and the almost irreparable abuses which too 
frequently stain the completion of the hopes of the 
latter, claim an odious and disgusting precedence 
The human mind infuriated by a systematic and 
deliberate oppression, and elevated by a triumph 
over it, is apt to abandon itself to its intoxicated 
sensations, and to the most violent and extreme 
conduct. Preserving no determinate course of 
action, and departing from the sentiments which 
first impelled it to opposition, it loses itself in the 



13 

variety and the multiplicity of its projects, and 
sacrifices its honor and its safety in the acquisi- 
tion of objects of a mere temporary interest. How 
fearfully has this fact been exemplified in the expe- 
rience of a contemporaneous people ! How striking 
and affecting is the moral comprised in their lamen- 
table fate ! It tells of a great and mighty power 
hurled from the pride of its strength to a depth of 
humiliation unheard of in the tide of times. It 
tells of a " land of chivalry, of a nation of cava- 
liers," where an enthusiastic devotion to their an- 
cient institutions united all hearts, and formed an 
impassable barrier around a monarch's throne; 
where all the ornaments and all the elegances of life 
flourished in unruffled sweetness ; and where all the 
arts that minister to man's comfort, and all the sci- 
ences that give dignity to his occupations improved 
in friendly competition and under an auspicious 
protection — sunk from the high career of empire, 
and debased into all the meanness and inferiority 
of dependence. 

Such was France!— such is she now! The 
descendants of the victorious Conde crouch beneath 
the sword of foreign invasion, and the successor of 
the gallant Henry begs his crown from the genero- 
sity of a conqueror. 

He, however, who has attentively surveyed that 
ocean of military despotism, which hath overspread 
the fairest portions of Europe, and whose waves 
have swallowed up the acquisitions of time, the 
embellishments of learning, and the supports of 
social welfare, may find a melancholy gratification 
in tracing the impurities of the streams which have 
nourished its fury, and whose troubled waters have 
collected its desolating mass. He may read in its 
wide spread ruin the undisguised operations of pri- 
vate immorality swollen into public corruption ; 



14 

and the destroying activity of human amibition re- 
leased from the guidance of virtue. For on such a 
dangerous basis were her movements directed, who 
professed on the commencement of her career the 
removal of the public grievances and the restoration 
of the national honour. In her unthinking zeal for 
reformation, she mistook the real causes of evil, and 
demolished the whole superstructure of government. 
Whilst she declaimed against the perversions of 
religion, she undermined its very foundation, and 
abolished its sacred sanctions. Whilst she yet groan- 
ed under the unequal distribution of the laws, with 
an unhallowed hand she shut up the fountains of 
public justice, and destroyed even the semblance of 
jurisprudence. Before even the clamour of discon- 
tent had stilled against the exclusions and monopolies 
of court favouritism, she barred up all the avenues of 
individual preferment, or parcelled out its treasures 
with the high hand of an untitled authority. With 
sacrilegious violence she even broke down the great 
entrenchments of national integrity, and shut her- 
self out from the community of the world. What 
then was to be expected? The authors of the 
general calamity stood aghast at its magnitude and 
extent. In the fierce councils, in the midnight de- 
liberations of this confederation of robbers, no light 
broke in upon the darkened understanding — no clue 
was found to guide through the labyrinth of the 
future — no key was fabricated to unlock its gloomy 
recesses. Whilst their acts could surprise, and the 
desperate energy of their attempts aimed a death 
blow at the peace and good order of society, these 
enemies alike of God and of man, trembled at their 
own imbecility. And whilst the crimes of the past 
rolled in awful succession before the startled eye, 
and the cloud of impending retribution grew black 



15 

er with the collected vengeance of insulted humani- 
ty, the pillars of their strength tottered to their base, 
and the strong holds of their defence crumbled be- 
neath their feet. 

It was at this moment of consternation and of 
terror, that a being arose, such as the imagination 
never before pictured. Like the inhabitant of an- 
other world, he broke in upon their privacy, and 
stood in the midst of the astonished assembly. Si- 
lencing with a voice of thunder the murmur of dis- 
content which marked his intrusion; and beatino- 
down the vain opposition which crossed his path, he 
boldly strode forward to the vacant chair of authori 
ty. Once firmly seated there, all that the wildest 
ambition of man had compassed shrunk before the 
daring energy of his mind. Embracing within his 
capacious grasp the subjugation of a world, and 
reaching forward to the sceptre of universal empire, 
the vastness of his conceptions could only be equal- 
led by the suddenness and rapidity of their execu- 
tion. Neither remoteness of situation, nor difficul- 
ty of access could intercept the great object of his 
soul from the intenseness of his gaze. His high 
commands seemed to hold the very elements in 
subjection, and the firm barriers of the creation 
checked not the resistless impetuosity of his course. 
The ancient boundaries of nations were forgotten 
in the immeasurable extent of his dominion, and 
with a reckless generosity he flung to the minions 
of his fortune the insignia of power and the crowns 
of monarchy. Kings graced his triumphs, and the 
people of every clime and of every soil, from the 
eternal snows of Lapland to the burning deserts of 
Arabia, bowed in silent subjection at the footstool 
of the modern Alexander. Such was the appear- 
ance of this meteor — such its eccentric flight— it 



16 

hath vanished— hut its fall hath blasted like the 
lightning of Heaven. Ti e glories of Europe have 
fled with the Gorsican into his exile ; and the land 
which shook with the earthquake shout of victory, 
and balanced in her hands the destiny of empire, 
has now become the traffic and the scorn of nations. 

Would it be extravagant to say that such also 
would have been our condition and such our pre- 
mature decay, had we not early valued and sted- 
fastly pursued an adverse line of conduct. 

The future historian as he rested on this isthmus 
of a world's defence, and while his soul was awed 
by the grandeur and magnificence with which na- 
ture had invested it, might have wondered at her 
caprice in peopling it with a race of men who could 
be deaf to her impressive adjurations, or could wil- 
lingly have relinquished the bounties her munifi- 
cence proffered to their acceptance. He might have 
seen how the genius of discord had entered this se- 
cond Eden of the universe, and polluted the bliss- 
fulness of its inhabitants. But let us bow in sub- 
missive thankfulness before the throne of an all-see- 
ing Providence, a more potent spirit hath chased 
from the bowers of Paradise the fiend that would 
have disturbed their serenity. It is indeed a source 
of the most unlimited astonishment to the specula- 
tive observer, and of rapturous joy to the patriot, 
to survey the vigilant precautions, the deep fore- 
sight, which America has in every place and in 
every period exhibited. Her unabated ardour in the 
path of rectitude, the mild and equable spirit of her 
internal policy, and the candour, forbearance and 
consistency of her foreign relations, have elicited 
en'en the admiration of her enemies. Her maturity 
has not disappointed the expectations of her youth ; 
and whether in distress or in prosperity, she has 



17 

advocated and cultivated, both publicly and private- 
ly, the qualities which alone can give worth, esteem 
and stability to her old age. 

It was reasonable to suppose, that the temporary 
lassitude and inertness of feeling, invariably accom- 
panying the fulfilment of our wishes, should have 
diverted our attention from the imperious duties 
we w T ere called to perform, and made us insensible 
to the dangers that thickened around us. At this 
critical juncture, however, when the people literal- 
ly lay at the mercy of their rulers, and when the 
weakest ambition or the slightest inconsiderateness 
might have renewed the misery from which we had 
but just escaped, there were found men high in 
the public estimation, whose characters were clear, 
whose integrity was above suspicion, and whose ca- 
pacities seemed to grow with the difficulties of their 
situation. With an unconquerable attachment to 
the cause of liberty, they combined moreover a cool- 
ness and impartiality of decision admirably calcula- 
ted to controul the tempestuous feelings of the 
times. In common with the rest of their country- 
men, they had suffered during the trying scenes of 
the revolution — had wept over its melancholy be- 
reavements — had rejoiced at its glorious termination. 
But they came to the momentous task to which 
their virtues had summoned them, with the digni- 
fied collectedness of men, in whom the calmness of 
philosophy had tempered and allayed the feverish 
irritability of personal excitement. For their coun- 
try they felt every thing, for themselves nothing. 
Trembling! v alive to the welfare of this single 
object of their affections, and deeply impressed with 
the magnitude of their trust, they were prepared 
to hazard every interest for the furtherance of the 
one, and to bend every private consideration to the 
faithful discharge of the other. 

n 



IS 

The wisdom and the purity of their delibera- 
tions have been amply tested and nobly rewarded 
by the happiness of their results. The aspirations 
of philosophy have at length been realizea, and the 
dreams of ignorance disappointed. Political science 
has received an acquisition which enlivens its wea- 
risome details, and dissipates the obscurity that en- 
veloped its researches. The student feels the hopes 
revive, which the early prospects of Grecian and 
Roman greatness had inspired in his bosom, and a 
new-born enthusiasm succeeds to the gloomy and 
desponding views, which the endless and accumula- 
ted errors of the past, its melancholy deceptions, and 
its unresisted sufferings, may have matured in his 
mind. It will no longer be accredited as an indis- 
puted axiom in practice, that man is incompetent 
for self-government, and that the very circumstan- 
ces of his being, destine him to be the sport and the 
victim of power. The principles of our constitution 
afYord a complete refutation of the slavish creeds 
which have hitherto prevailed, and the bitterest 
satire on the circumstances which have given them 
currency. Other governments have originated in 
the chance of events ; the same chance regulates 
their progress and confines their duration. Ours is 
the choice of solemn, deliberate reflection ; is in no 
respect inadequate to the production and promotion 
of the true and legitimate purposes of legislation ; 
and contains within itself the most effectual provi- 
sions for its own continuance and support. Its 
distinguishing feature is Liberty ; but it is the 
liberty of improved civilized man, sought in its 
natural course and in its ordinary haunts — held in 
the spirit of good feeling — and established on prin- 
ciples honourable to humanity — It is a liberty con- 
nected with order — with fixed and positive laws — 
with the strict administration of justice. It is in equal 



19 

opposition to a rash and licentious spirit of innova- 
tion on established institutions, or a treasonous and 
.disorganising resistance to the established govern- 
ment ; in those who are sheltered under their protec- 
tion ; and to the undue and arrogant assumptions of 
those in whose hands are entrusted the ensigns of 
national authority. It rather trusts to the delicate ad- 
justments of time, and to the elastic spirit of improve- 
ment which ever accompanies the dissemination of 
liberal and correct principles, for the removal of the 
little inconveniences to which the one may be sub- 
jected ; and its checks to the other are to be found in 
the good sense and watchful jealousy of those who 
have realised the great blessings of equality. 

The simplicity of our system having moreover 
nothing to fear from the preponderance of royalty, 
the encroachments of aristocracy or the coerced ac- 
cumulation of property, has rejected in its operations 
the circuitous, operose, and unwieldy contrivances, 
and the complicated and almost indefinable actions 
and re-actions, which have been deemed so essential 
to preserve a proportionate balance between the 
conflicting claims and the discordant pretensions of 
the various orders in state. Wealth appropriates 
and enforces no influence but a voluntary tribute to 
the honourable industry by which it is acquired ; 
rank and distinction are reserved as the rewards of 
merit alone ; and the frequency of popular election, 
by subjecting power to the revision of that public 
will from which it emanates, prevents its undue 
ascendancy ; and by restraining it within its proper 
•limits, converts it into the means of private useful- 
ness and of general good. 

The great principle of representation also, incor- 
porated into its very essence and modifying its 
composition, has removed from democracy all the 



20 

imperfections on which the ridicule of the world 
has been so lavishly expended ; has calmed its 
turbulence and corrected its uncertainty ; and while 
it has preserved its sterling virtue unimpaired, has 
clothed it with all the vaunted energy of monar- 
chy. Wonderful expedient ! how deep and incal- 
culable are the obligations it has laid upon socie- 
ty ! how severely has government suffered from its 
absence ! Had it been known to the ancients, the 
ostracism of Athens would never have sullied her 
generosity, nor would the reverses of her fortunes 
have compelled her to supplicate the virtues her 
ingratitude had driven into banishment. Had Rome 
recognized its worth, the dictatorship of Sylla, in- 
stead of controuling the public opinion, would have 
been purified by its ordeal, and the triumvirate 
which increased the number of her tyrants, might 
have assayed and attested the prolificence of the 
public virtue. Had not the corruptions of power 
diverted its destination in Britain and transformed it 
into the instrument of its machinations, she would 
not now have exhibited the ignominious spectacle 
of an ill advised sovereign and a debilitated ministry, 
competing with the disaffection? of an irritated po- 
pulace, nor would her venerable and sacred halls 
of justice have been disgraced by the farcical con- 
demnation of madmen and of ideots. Had the poli- 
tical empiricism of France, fluctuating between the 
thousand theories which amused her wavering in- 
consistency, and at last sinking into all the gloom 
and cheerlessness of despotism, but paused ere it 
violated its sanctity, the stroke of death might not 
have descended in vain on the head of the unoffend- 
ing Louis, nor would the reformation, which com- 
menced in blood, have broken the throne of the 
Bourbons, to build with its fragments the funeral 
pile of liberty. 



21 

How animating too, to each citizen of these states, 
is the reflection that he is not called to celebrate the 
singular fortunes or the overbearing supremacy of 
a portion, but the universal happiness and the dif- 
fluent greatness of an immensely extended and 
constantly expanding empire. And that while we 
are retracing, with the pride of freemen, the deeds 
of our common ancestors, and asserting the posses- 
sion of a common heritage, we are not forced to 
mourn over the aberration of a single orb from the 
harmony of the political system, nor the general 
derangement or destruction of its equilibrium. The 
realization of the reverse has left it to imagination 
to muse on the disgustful colourings of this picture. 
Our invaluable constitution has united those whom 
an association of suffering, an identity of feeling, 
and a similarity of habits had already approximated, 
and cemented their connexion by the indissoluble 
ties of mutual interests and reciprocal benefits. It- 
assumes then a higher and more dignified character. 
It is the league of an enduring friendship — it is the 
4i sacred partnership of freedom and of glory.'' 
Like the sun of Heaven, it dispenses warmth, and 
vigour, and fertility, over the moral system ; and 
as the broad ocean protects us from the dangers of 
foreign enmity, so it presents an insurmountable 
barrier to the advances of domestic faction. Where 
is the ambition that could wish, or where is the 
timidity that apprehends the downfall of our repub- 
lic ? Are we to fear the secret machinations of 
individual enterprise ? How would it confront the 
majesty, or how would it resist the might of a go- 
vernment, which can summon to her defence the 
patriotism and the devotedness of the millions who 
hail her as the safeguard of their rights, and the 
parent of their joys ? On what accursed spot would 



22 

rebellion plant its standard ? Shall it stiffen in the 
frosts of the north ? How would the deepening 
hue of its apostacy be rebuked by the contrasted 
splendour of a southern sky ? Shall it wave in 
the winds of the south ? How would its recre- 
ant folds withstand the scathing of that avenging 
storm which should roll from the mountains of 
the north ? Or do we rather forbode the falling 
of a single star from the firmament which spreads 
above us ? Whither would it wing its faltering 
flight, if not reclaimed by that resistless gravitation, 
whose all pervading force no less sustains the general 
fabric, than guides each smaller and each greater 
sphere in its appointed course ? The recent experi- 
ence of a guilty section, has convinced us of the folly 
of secession and the impracticability of division ; 
and she who has given the lesson will not readily 
forget that burst of indignation which scared her 
unholy proceeding even in its incipiency, and which 
sounded like the knell of death to those who came 
to worship at the shrine of treason and dishonour. 
An institution then, like this, is endeared to us 
by the most interesting considerations. Abstractly 
examined, it proposes advantages which the fertile 
framers of imaginary commonwealths never could 
have anticipated from their visionary speculations ; 
and its practical utility needs no other comment 
than a fair and unprejudiced review of the history 
of our country. It is in its perpetuation alone, that 
we are to look for the accomplishment of the great 
ends of creation, and that man is represented in co- 
lours which afford the most dignified aspect of his 
nature. It is when the vain, the cumbrous, and the 
oppressive distinctions of society are levelled with 
the dust, and the simple elementary principles of 
all human institutions resume their agency in the 



2S 

machine of government, that the unfettered soul 
feels its capacity for happiness and virtue, and the 
current of numaii feelings runs in the channel where 
the mighty dispensations of Providence had origi- 
nally given it to tlow. It is then the scene of our em- 
ployments and the theatre of our conduct expand ; 
and the habits of elevated thought and of sublime 
exertion impel us to the attainment of objects which 
the limited apprehensions of the world had hitherto 
shut out from the boundary of human expectation. 
Happy, therefore, among ourselves, and at a 
distance from the troubles and distractions of Eu- 
rope, both our feelings and our policy led us to 
cultivate the arts of peace. Our government was 
rapidly advancing in estimation, both at home and 
abroad, during a long season of tranquility ; and 
renewing its strength in the habits of industrious 
application, its salutary and benevolent influence 
encouraged and promoted among the citizens at 
large. The resources of a young and enterprising 
country were daily unfolding, and its dependence 
on foreign assistance gradually wearing away. 
With every variety of climate and of soil, our agri- 
culture appropriated to itself every production of 
nature — with a sea board of almost incalculable- 
extent, our commerce fatigued the waves, and 
stretched to every breeze of the ocean — and with a 
population constantly accumulating, and necessarily 
detaching some portions of that mass of labour 
employed in the cultivation of the earth and in the 
exportation of its products, our manufactories began 
to rival the boasted inventions of older countries , 
and from supplying our domestic wants, were imper- 
ceptibly advancing into the maintenances of national 
wealth and credit. The rude touch of war might 
in a moment destroy the attainments of years of 



24 

labour — it would doubtless impair their vigour and 
impede their extension. It is not in the shock of 
contending armies — it is not in the wild licentious- 
ness of a camp — it is not in the fierce and intractable 
passions of a lawless soldiery that we are to look 
for that quietness and sobriety of conduct which 
conduce to the lasting greatness of a country ; or 
that the lesions of an equal morality are taught^ 
without whicii that greatness were a scourge. A 
state of hostilities, on the contrary, is to be depreca- 
ted in the extreme. The national character becomes 
impregnated with the military spirit, and the mea- 
sures of government wear a correspondent harshness 
and ferocity. The feelings of the people, undergo a 
radical alteration — those most averse to scenes of 
bloodshed, become -familiarised with their horrors ; 
and even those who are removed by their locality 
from the conflict of battle, in listening to the exploits 
of heroism — the courage with which danger is met, 
and the fortitude with which suffering is endured — 
lose a relish for their ordinary pursuits, and are 
anxious to exchange " an inglorious ease, ,? for the 
bustle of more active employment. 

Our neutrality, however, was not to be of long 
continuance. That pacific understanding we were 
desirous to maintain with the belligerents of Europe 
was liable to disturbance from too many quarters, 
and there were not wanting, in that indiscriminate 
spoliation which the anarchy of Europe fomented, 
those who were willing to take advantage of the 
comparative defenceiessness of our situation. The 
insatiate rapacity of France mocked at the formality 
of a treaty, and the opportunity was not to be lost 
to the indulgence of that animosity with which the 
government of Great Britain had always regarded 
the growing prosperity of our country. The ruth 



25 

less tyranny of the one, however, may have found 
some palliation for her conduct in the plenitude of 
her power, which in some measure defied our ven- 
geance : but what can excuse the unprovoked nad 
impolitic aggressions of the other? Forgetting her 
internal embarrassments, on the very eve of bank- 
ruptcy, she cast away the only remaining source of 
her wasted commerce and diminished revenue, and 
at the very moment when the arts and the arms of 
her gigantic rival had dissolved the friendship and 
subdued the power of her ancient allies, she wan- 
tonly assailed the rights and insulted the honour of 
a nation, whose enmity was the more seriously to 
be apprehended, as it separated equally from the 
sympathies as from the assistance of the world. 
With a chicanery and duplicity unworthy of her 
high character, she stooped to the disguises of 
France ; and to retaliate outrage, consented to em- 
ploy the very artifices and pretexts she had previouly 
denounced and condemned in her opponent. Her 
orders in council evinced a shameful similitude with 
the Berlin and Milan decrees; and whilst either 
seemed to act against the other, both united in secret 
concert against the unguarded, because unsuspicious 
security, of a people, whose transactions could have 
no possible relation to the great European dispute, 
nor the most distant influence on its result. It is to 
be lamented too, that she who was the protectress of 
liberty in one continent, should have been its merci- 
less and exterminating foe in another ; and that 
w r hilst the vortex of political destruction was every 
day, nay every hour, widening its circumference, 
and whilst nation after nation sunk around her, and 
she alone was left to guard the sacred citadel of 
European freedom, she should thus unthinkingly 
have descended from the grandeur of her station and 

D 



26 

tarnished the purity of her fame, by a reproachful 
association with the perfidy of her measures and 
the fickleness of her resolves. 

Wrongs then, intolerable to freemen, compelled 
us to assume an attitude of resistance. I will not 
now dilate on the reasons which led to the selection 
of our antagonist, nor on the unpleasant topics 
whose incidental interest multiplied and embittered 
the bickerings and animosity of party. They are 
alluded to, however, as they develope an important 
fact in the history of the late war . A cruel and 
mercenary enemy, mistaking their import, calculated 
with hasty and improvident eagerness on the pro- 
bable assistance they might render to her atrocious 
schemes. It had long been believed in England, 
and the numerous productions of her press teemed 
with the aspersion, that an alternation of the tone 
and temper of feeling of the American people had 
been insensibly produced by the dismissal of the 
causes of irritation ; that as the sentiments of vene- 
ration and of esteem with which the virtues and 
services of our ancestors were regarded, were weak- 
ened by time, by the changes of our population, and 
by the force of other more imperious subjects of 
attention, we had unconsciously assumed that care- 
lessness and indifference about the public concerns 
which have marked the conduct of other nations; 
and that with the el a arteristic ingratitude and folly 
of republics, we should be ready, as soon as the 
occasion offered, to gratify the yearnings of private 
ambition at the expense of the public welfare, and 
the public honor. An opinion like this cast its own 
darkness over the mind that harboured it, and pre- 
pared it to regard the warmth and effervescences of 
party discussion, not as the consequences of liberty, 
but as the marks of disaffection. Were then the 



27 

war recommended to us by no other circumstance, 
than its having convinced our enemies that the dan 
ger of freedom but renders it more valuable in the 
estimation of its possessors, and that whatever may 
be the slighter shades of distinction which rest on 
the surface of our political character, they have not 
removed, and cannot even diminish our unalterable 
attachment to that cause for which our forefathers 
so honourably, and gloriously, and successfully con- 
tended, we should have the most ample subject for 
congratulation. 

But the war has effected a more precious object. 
It has given the last and decisive proof of the excel- 
lence of our government. The most obstinate 
scepticism had acknowledged her salutary influences 
in peace ; but a severer scrutiny remained to establish 
her ability, to defend her own honour and the rights 
of the people. It was soon discovered, however, that 
she whose diplomacy was accounted pusillanimity, 
and whose tardiness to resent provoked repetition 
of injury, could wield with skill and firmness and 
success, more efficient weapons, and that so far 
from repressing, she renewed and invigorated the 
native energies of man. Indeed the origin of a dog- 
ma so injurious to the character of free govern- 
ment, has never been satisfactorily explained. His- 
tory has confined it in no instance, and even preju- 
dice has been compelled to attribute the debility of 
the few republics which have arisen to attain a pre- 
carious celebrity, to a disordered organization, or 
to an amalgamation of their principles with the es- 
sential qualities of other forms, rather than to the 
force of any extraneous opposition. Wherever 
they have existed in their purity, their strength has 
always been found commensurate with, if not supe- 
riour to the emergencies which drew forth a display 



28 

of their power. The defence of Thermopylae is at 
once a monument of Spartan valour, and an inde- 
lible stigma on the cowardice of despotism, and the 
annals of republican Rome attest their capacity even 
for the extension of foreign conquest. But we need 
not multiply instances in the solution of a question 
which the events of our own times have rendered no 
longer problematical. America, untutored in amis 
and without the means of instruction but what were 
afforded in the hazards and vicissitudes of war, has 
overcome the forces and shamed the knowledge 
and the experience of the proudest nation on the 
globe. A turbulent, irregular and undisciplined 
militia has driven from the land, the legions whose 
prowess made even the " conqueror of the world" 
tremble on the shores of Egypt, and in the vallies 
of Spain; and who in a later day, foremost in the 
field of death, have torn from its base that colossal 
figure, whose terrific shadow clouded the political 
horizon, and obstructed the gaze of futurity. An 
infant navy iias despoiled the haughty mistress of 
the ocean of all her triumphs, and left her only the 
security of her own waters, in which she may fight 
in mimic show, the battles no longer formidable on 
a broader scale, or' in actual conflict. What tho' 
disgrace hovered over our first and maiden effort ? 
Did not the momentary exultation of the foe stimu- 
late the spirit that burned to erase the foul stain it 
affixed on the national escutcheon? Was the co- 
operation of state authorities denied, or did an 
imaginary constitutional exemption furnish a dis- 
guise to cold-hearted fear, or still more contemptible 
treachery? And was the resolution of government 
shaken, or did the national ardour subside in the 
extremity of our fortunes? Was flight inglorious? 
Who would not have shared in that flight, which 



29 

taught us to combine the caution of prudence with 
the confidence of valour? And where is the infamy 
of defeat when bathed in the blood of the martyred 
Lawrence, or where the shame of captivity, when 
the victor blushed in the presence of the overpower'd 
Scot ? Was the tide of invasion to be rolled back 
on the soil of the invader, or were the conflagration 
of our cities and the massacres on our frontiers to 
be avenged? Whose eye is not instinctively turned 
to the heroic Pike — like Achilles bra\e, and like 
Ach'lles sacrificed? Or was the more delightful 
task assigned to guard the retreat of innocence, and 
the home of freedom? See, as the smoke of battle 
ascends, the flag of our country waving triumphantly 
on the battlement's height ; and hearken, as the noise 
of artillery is hushed, to the acclamations which 
greet the youthful Croghan and the veteran Jack- 
son. And shall I speak of victory — illuming the 
deep and echoing thro' the forest — illustrated by a 
series of glorious deeds, and associated with a host 
of honoured names — identified with the fame of 
Hull, and the rivalry of Biinbridge — the discretion 
of Brown, and the devotedness of Jones — the gal- 
lantry of Perry, and the generosity of Decatur : — . 
But who shall distribute the rewards of the republic, 
or who shall apportion the meed of praise and 
measure out the debt of gratitude? Let us retire 
from the arduous task, and as we close the glowing 
narrative in despair, let the unfinished duty proclaim 
that such and so great are the triumphs, and such 
and so glorious are the children of LIBERTY, 



FINIS 



I. 



t*t I 



